Beer sits on the Southwest Coast
Path - part of the Trans-European network of long distance paths,
known as GR routes - Grand Routes!!!

Why not walk the Jurassic Coast
Path - from Studland to Exmouth

Modern
Ripples

Peak Hill
Sidmouth 2015

The principle of

UNIFORMITARIANISM

The Present is
the key to the Past

These two photos were taken on the
same day

200 million years apart, but only 20
metres apart

Fossil Ripples

Peak
Hill, Sidmouth

200
million years ago

Geology
Matters

Geology has made a real difference to the lives
of people in Beer and its visitors.

Beer is a gateway to The World Heritage Coast.
It stretches from Otterton Point in the West to Old Harry Rocks in
the East. It covers the whole of the Mesozoic Period; The Triassic,
the oldest of the three, the Jurassic in the middle and lastly the
Cretaceous.

Cretaceous comes from the Latin, creta, meaning
chalk. The Cretaceous played host to last of the dinosaurs;
which were probably driven to extinction by a meteorite collision
with Earth 65 million years ago. It is called the KT boundary
and is marked worldwide (though not here) by a thin layer of
iridium, a rare element. Cretaceous rocks stretch from Flamborough
Head, in Yorkshire, south to the white cliffs of Dover and west to
Dorset. They then fade away, due to erosion, and Beer is the
last significant outcrop of Cretaceous rock going west.

The white chalk at Beer stands out immediately
against the red Triassic mudstones on either side, making it a
memorable place. There is the fault line to the east of Beer.
Whitecliff (or Head of Whitcliff) has dropped about 60 metres
compared to the red cliffs of Seaton to the east, where the
Cretaceous has been eroded away leaving the Triassic exposed.
There is no Jurassic rock here. It is an unconformity.
The first Jurassic layers appear about 2km to the east of
Seaton.

Beer Head, a great navigational aid, protects
Beer from prevailing so’ westerly gales as well as
northerlies.

Beer sits in a syncline; a dip or fold, in the
chalk and each of the layers has had an impact on the life here,
the Greensands (with its chert beds), the Chalk with its Freestone
and flints.

The beach is made up of flints that have eroded
from the chalk, some rounded off by the action of the sea, some
more recently fallen with a knobbly appearance and some still with
a trace of cortex or skin. There are also lumps of
chalk.

You can find fossils in the Cretaceous, although
not as plentiful as the Jurassic.

Sedimental - Rocks and
Humans

Beer is an unconformity in the
Walk Through Time along the World Heritage Site, where the
greensands and chalks of the Cretaceous period come out to the sea
at Beer Head and sit next to the Triassic sandstones at Seaton
Hole. So what opportunities has this presented to people throughout
history?

Neolithic man came to Beer 6000
years ago. He knew that black flint can be shaped and sharpened to
make cutting tools and axes. He may have realised that flints are
often associated with chalk, and noticed that Beer Head has the
most westerly white cliffs. The cliffs themselves may have been a
good source of flint, although he will have discovered that flints
which have been rolled around on the beach are difficult to knap.
We know that Stone-Age man made tools from Beer flint and took, or
traded, it over a wide area indicating that the people in Beer were
in contact with other groups. Neolithic man also used chert for
scrapers, which have been found locally. New Stone Age (4000 -2000
BC) tools made in Beer have been found at Hembury, Haldon and as
far away as Carn Brea in Cornwall. In 1645 Beer flint was used in
flintlock guns for the New Model Army, and black flint is
apparently still used today for scalpels for eye
surgery.

The next recorded inhabitants of
Beer were the Romans who quarried stone, creating the first of the
underground caves for which Beer is famous. They realised that the
Beer freestone has such a fine grain that it can be carved as well
as being used as a building material. They found the other
ingredients for buildings locally – sand from greensand, chert,
chalk for lime wash and mortar, as well as gypsum from Weston. We
know that the Romans built a villa at Honey Ditches in Seaton, and
possibly one in Beer, and they also used Beerstone to make small
items like lamps. The Saxon church of St. George's in Exeter is
partly built with Beer stone that was recycled, having been used
originally in a Roman building.

We know that the Romans settled in
Beer for at least three hundred years because coins for each of the
3 centuries have been found at the caves. What we don't know is
where they used all of the stone which they quarried. While they
sought Beer stone below ground the Romans also realised that the
south-west facing slopes of thin limestone soil were ideal for
grapes, and so they brought vines to grow. We assume they were
successful, because much later, around 1200, Beer provided wine for
Sherborne Abbey.

Beer Head stands out because the
late Cretaceous chalks have not eroded as much as the Triassic
sandstones to the east. It provides a natural shelter from the
prevailing winds, which means that fishermen can launch and recover
their boats at most states of the tide. We know that this is an
ancient occupation as in 1145 Beer fisheries and salt pits were
ceded to Sherborne Abbey. Beer still has a fishing fleet and
was, of course, also famous for smuggling.

Today, local stone in Beer is still
making history. Small pieces of greensand from the village have
recently returned after 18 months in space. Scientists have
ascertained that the microbes in the greensand have survived their
epic journey. So, when your great-grand children blast off on a
journey to Mars or Venus, where they will have to grow their own
food, you will know that Beer provided the evidence that organisms
can survive and grow in space.

by Norah Jaggers, Ambassador for the
East Devon and Dorset World Heritage Site. Beer Village
Heritage.

See this all brought to life in
the Self Shelter, Jubilee Gardens, Beer, East Devon World Heritage
Coast